Job Hunt

Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to have a job? And when I say job, I mean the thing you don’t really want, but get up most days to go to, and spend most of your life complaining about – yeah, that thing. I am not referring to dreams, callings, or purposes – I am talking about the “it’s just a job” jobs…the largely “just for the money” jobs.

(You know…the ones that destroy your soul, and make you feel completely replaceable).

Apologies for the pessimistic tone! But I have been on the job hunt as it were, and so far I haven’t caught much…if this was in the wild sometime BC, and I was a caveman…well, yeah…the family would be going hungry right now. A lot of things have just went wrong, or at least haven’t turned out right – whilst others have been an undeniable travesty.

So here goes:

* Summer 2014: I spent two months in England battling the Korean embassy for a work-visa…I had signed for a new school, but just had to get the legal side of things straightened out (for some reason they wanted to make sure I wasn’t a murderer…which I thought was fair enough). One delay came after another, and every phone call was met with “you should just wait!” Well…I had been waiting…and it was getting ridiculous. Fortunately two days before I was due to be flown out, the visa arrived! HOOOOORAAAAY! Unfortunately the day after this, my school emailed me saying it was going to close down…so they no longer needed me as a teacher. Fucking fantastic. I flew out anyway, as I felt it would be easier to find jobs while I was actually in the country. GULP.

* Autumn 2014: Got a few things in the works, as you may have heard, but needed something more concrete to pay the bills, and you know – feed myself. So I began interviewing for new schools…the first one I interviewed for was in an old neighbourhood, which was kind of quaint, and interesting. The boss had a very errr…bizarre story for me though – whilst discussing the school, and the whole set up of the operation, he went on to inform me that the whole thing plays out like an unbelievable TV drama; he has one teacher who ran away to “get married to an Iraqi man”, and then returned out of the blue, but told no one what had happened – another who has been working there for seventeen years “because he won’t leave” – another who became pregnant, and continued to deny it (why?) even when she was in the later inflated balloon stage…another who…okay, let’s leave it there. I just thought: what the hell is this place?! And where is the exit?!

* Autumn 2014 (Continued): I interviewed at another school…which was weird in another way – I got there, and sat down with the chap…he nodded, asked one or two questions…well, no…they weren’t questions they were just vague statements – he then said I looked good so he had no problems, I had the job if I wanted it, and that we could sign the contract the following week. The whole thing took about five minutes, if that. I was pleased as the school was close to Taco Bell, which meant that I’d be having a splendid lunch for two weeks in a row! However…and it’s a big however…the week after signing the contract, the agent got in touch with me…and said that, that school l is closing down too! WHAAAAAT THE FIZUCKKKK?! It’s like fucking King Midas…except everything I touch doesn’t turn to gold…it turns to literal human shit!!!?? What is wrong with me?! ARGHHHH! Breathe…breathe…breathe…

* Winter 2014: I got a temporary position for a couple of weeks at a school, and so far it is going okay – actually they offered me a full time job come February – but the timing won’t be right. This when put with my private tutors…editing gigs…and other things, means that I won’t die of starvation, which is naturally a huge relief. I am excited to be going home for Christmas! But I am continuing on my job search…mrs-satan/ got in touch actually, and it should say a lot that I am tempted to return – they offered extremely short hours, and only with kindergarten too – so it’d be playing with kids, and then writing, and doing whatever I wanted for the rest of the time. Sounds sweet…but then again…I’d be in her hellish arena once more. Meanwhile, my Korean friend is trying to get me a job at his workplace – something about social media, I don’t know – it’d be a real grown up job…suit and tie by rule, not just because…arghhh, all of this hurts my head.

That’s why I have day-dreamed about how fantastic it would be if we all just wandered around, doing whatever – naturally it is impossible, but still. I hope that one day, I can make enough money from the things I love, so that I don’t have to have all of these money-woes, and job worries. It reduces from the beauty of life itself, because you become fixated on money, money, money.

ARGHHH! Now Abba is stuck in my head…I have only myself to blame. Wish me luck my friends, I hope you are all doing well.

57 thoughts on “Job Hunt”

Money, money, money! Must be funny, in the Rich Man’s world!
Yup! I getcha. If only we could pay for things in Buttons. I could possibly travel the world on the amount of buttons I have! But instead I must find a way to pay of over $50,000 in loans…and buttons will not do the trick.
Alas, it’s a rich man’s world.

Yes, I never wanted to work, ever! Fortunately my job pretty much consists of me sitting on my ass and blogging and getting annoyed when the phone rings. Before I landed this gem of a job though, my employment experiences were quite similar to yours…no joke…and these were all in America, mind you .

Keep your spirits up John. The spirit that is alive on this blog. 🙂 Keep looking – you will find one you like. Imagine if you got one, and it was so boring and totally demoralised you/your intellect. Then, the people at work are tearing each other every day. (I have one of those. Thank God it is only for 3 days each week and enough to pay the mortgage). All the best John.

UMMMM I TOTALLY FEEL YOU HERE. I have been looking for a dang job for a half a year now. I’m going the teaching certification route right now but I really would just LOVE to be doing something I love, the only problem with that is that all the jobs I would love to have are hard to get!! I even have a degree for it, which doesn’t exactly qualify me. I need the experience too…which I don’t have. *SIGH* Hope you land a great job!!

Oh Amanda, YES! Like totally…firstly there aren’t so many jobs out there – people used to say that, but now it is actually true…then secondly it’s the whole experience problem – you need the experience, but then there’s no job in which to get said experience…phew, it’s a mess.

I’m surprised you even got interviews! Where I am, you never hear from anyone – just send a resume. Crickets…
I’ve always said we shouldn’t have to work – this is America! But I fear we’re returning to Dickensian measures.
Nice post – well written!

I’ve been looking for a job for a long while. At the moment, I do have a paying gig as a WRITER! Which is my dream job, of course. The sad thing is that it is a limited amount of work for only a few weeks. But for those weeks … heaven!

I totally feel you John! I have two jobs (and I am a student so that’s three I guess haha) and one of two I don’t like so much. It’s work anyone could do; no brainpower needed. It’s horrible for the creative mind. Dying a slow and painful death. (Well that’s perhaps a bit exaggerated, but you get the image I think)

John, that you want to teach makes you one a true hero. The Future, the children, rests uneasily in the hands of teachers, those who dare to be lifelong learners. Teaching is not a career; it is a calling and the transformation of education is the only hope for the endurance of civilisation because it’s here where kids must learn to become humanKIND by experiencing that they belong. This is what my life purpose and passion, ‘work’ as High Play is all about. As a teacher you’d appreciate what http://www.thebelongingprojects.org is all about. Keep on keeping on!

I have a great job really…I plan party for seniors and sit around and shoot the breeze with them. As I think old people are GREAT this is a good gig for me…except for the bumholes that I must work with and the paperwork and the drama. I’d like to be well off enough that I could string a few paid companion jobs together for my pocket change. No paper work, no drama and as soon as I encounter a jerk that makes my day crap I can say “I’m sorry this wont work” and move on. For now I have to murder them in my fantasy life.

I love this post! I am lucky enough I have support that I can do what I love because heaven knows it does not pay the best – but I get to change lives everyday (personal trainer – private) and I get to make people and places pretty (side job – stylist) I thank my lucky stars every day, I had to work so hard to get where I am and I don’t ever want to lose it!

What an unfortunate series of events! I hope I don’t run into similar problems when I apply for work in South Korea next fall. In the meantime I’ll be on a mini job hunt in San Francisco, which shouldn’t be too bad, but I’m assuming I’ll end up at a retail store or something else short term. Big difference from living abroad and working as a respected teacher! But there are so many job changes we’ll have in life so to see one ‘job’ as a means to an end will help the time pass. Good luck!

I changed schools this year, too. You’d think that 5 certifications in 5 different subject areas would make a job search a cakewalk, but apparently this was a bad year for teaching. Like you, I had a job offer and then two days later the campus closed down and I was never contacted again. This is in the U.S., mind, not abroad. Finally got an interview 2 days before school started, hired the day after, signed the papers the day school started and began teaching the 2nd day of classes. And I still had to go take yet another certification exam for yet another area. Phhtttt.